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hockeyhead's 55 gal SW

Alright here we go, this will most likely be a rather long post so you might wanna sit down as I attempt to bore you to death while I bring you up to speed of where I'm at.

Ok so I'm on a rather tight budget since I'm still in college and have to pay for school myself, which is completely fine but it will just inhibit my progress some.

Anyways my plan is to have a 55 gallon tank which will eventually be a reef tank, you know fish rock sps and hopefully an anemone, the system will have a 20 gallon sump and as many DIY things as I can do without endangering the system's inhabitants

So far I have the two tanks and PVC set up for my overflow system (still only a dry fit hasn't been glued together in-case I decide to make changes)

55 Gallon Beast (for me at least haha I know most of you have double the size):

That's post cleaning... well at least some of the cleaning haha need to do a more thorough windexing on the outside eventually

20 Gallon sump: it's just a regular looking 20 gallon long haha nothing special I'm sure we've all seen them before haha I'll post pictures once I get it set up with the compartments the way I have it in my head lol

And here's my rough draft of a over flow type system:

And finally a little shot to show you how it will hang on the tank... hopefully haha:

From outside the tank

From inside the tank... the intake is a little high I think but I'm gonna test it out and see how it goes with just water in the tank once I get all my equipment for a wet test. Also there will be some screen over the top and I'll probably cut slits in as well

So ok now on to my plan of action:

1. Pick up my MAG pump this weekend (MAG 12, pumps out 1200gph which I know is overkill but I figured it can't hurt): This weekend

2. Begin construction on stand for tank of 2x4's (will be very sturdy, mix of 2x4's and plywood sheeting): Hopefully Friday night

3. Pick up skimmer and power heads : TBD

4. Do a wet test of all equipment OUTSIDE and make sure all my plumbing and fiddle with my rates so that they are equal (siphon out of tank = pumping into tank) : After stand is complete and plumbing has been tested and glued haha (might be changed to basement due to cold weather)

5. FISH!!!! No I'm completely kidding haha

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head... I mean I know I'm skimming the surface but for the love of God the post is already long enough haha so I won't get into my plan for cycling and all that good stuff yet

As for right now I'm researching my lighting options, I want to do DIY because I have no problem getting it all wired up accordingly and all that hooha but I just don't wanna F it up and then have to but a 130 dollar fixture anyways lol

Also I need to figure out where I'm going to put this bad boy in my room... I started with the notion of the foot of my bed but I think I might move the 20 gal fresh over there since it will fit better and I'll put this sucker over on the wall where the fresh was, which will work out because they'll both still have access to an outlet.

Plans for power are to just run a power strip from the nearest outlet and go from there accordingly. Haven't really looked into the consumption and whether or not it'll blow my breaker. It should be a 15A breaker so if it is too much I can always spread the load out a little.

So if anybody has any advice feel free to chime in haha I've been reading "The New Aquarium" by Michael Paletta which has been great very knowledgeble but if you guys have any tips from what I've written already feel free to chime in. Like I said progress will be slow so don't get too excited haha

-Jim

55g Long --> After 18mo of doing well the tank crashed during moving. Most likely cause: Flatworm Die-off... won't start another until after moving... Likely not until late 2013

If your looking into lighting, and if you are going to get/build a canopy, you might want to look into Tek retrofit kits. They are HO T5s. Basically, all the pcs you need to build a T5 light fixture into your canopy. Might be worth looking into. I seen info from others who have used these and saved a truckload of $$$$. I've been thinking about doing this for my tank

Your mag 12 may not be that much overkill. I don’t know much about them. But you might want to verify at what height you get the 1200 gph at? You can loose between 100 and 200 gph per each foot of height. Some manufactures stat pump capacity with factoring in some height, while others do not. Either way, if you have at least a 1.5” drain line, you will be able to have 1200 gph of flow from your return pump.

I don’t think you can have too much flow provided you sump and drain line will be able to keep –up.

If you take your time to do the research FIRST, you can successfully set-up and keep ANY type of aquarium with ease."Not using a quarantine tank is like playing Russian roulette. Nobody wins the game, some people just get to play longer than others." - Anthony CalfoFishless CycleCycling with FishMarine Aquarium Info [URL="http://saltwater.aquaticcommunity.com/"]

I think the mag 12 will be too much for your overflow. We run a mag 9.5 wide open on our 75 which is a reef ready tank with a 1 inch drain and 4 feet head and I think anything higher will not keep up.

You can, however plumb in a bypass to dial it down. Basically you tee the return line. On that t you have 1 end going the the display and 1 back to the sump. You put a valve on the one going back to the sump so you can control the flow. You can also just put a ball valve on the return line, but it puts back pressure on the pump which can shorten its life. The bypass eliminates the back pressure and even allowed me to run the 9.5 on a 29 gallon with a HOB overflow.

Here's how we had our bypass when we had a 29 gallon. We don't need one on the 75

Cliff, I know the standard rating is 1200gph, however at my planned height of about 4' I believe I read it's around 625gph or so. Which will be fine from what I've read you want to have your tank water turned 6-8 times per hour, and this will put me at almost 10 times.

Here's a link to the idea for my sump design, however as I think about it I don't know how restricting the bubble catch walls will be in terms of flow

Here's a link to the youtube videos I plan to follow with:

It looks rather simple but I want to make sure it won't be too restrictive in terms of flow

Labnjab, I had seen you post that somewhere else and thought it was brilliant because it won't stress the pump by creating back pressure but it won't upset the balance. I was definitely planning on implementing this into my return line :)

55g Long --> After 18mo of doing well the tank crashed during moving. Most likely cause: Flatworm Die-off... won't start another until after moving... Likely not until late 2013

This way you will able to add a reactor latter on should you decide to, and you won't need to buy a second pump (like I had to ).

If you take your time to do the research FIRST, you can successfully set-up and keep ANY type of aquarium with ease."Not using a quarantine tank is like playing Russian roulette. Nobody wins the game, some people just get to play longer than others." - Anthony CalfoFishless CycleCycling with FishMarine Aquarium Info [URL="http://saltwater.aquaticcommunity.com/"]

Ok so I got my MAG 12 drive today and it came with this foam pre filter type thing, just curious if you guys use these or not? I mean I assume that you would to keep the intake of bubbles and any debris out of the pump, but I figured I'd ask and see what the traditional thing to do was haha

Hopefully gonna start work on my stand some time this week, didn't get the chance this weekend but hopefully can find some time this week to start construction, I have a plan for how I want to build it but it's just going to be a matter of getting my act together and then getting a couple of metal elbow supports I'll have pictures as I start building the stand

55g Long --> After 18mo of doing well the tank crashed during moving. Most likely cause: Flatworm Die-off... won't start another until after moving... Likely not until late 2013

As for the pump prefilter, personally, based only on what I have read, I would not use one. They can lead to more nitrates if you don’t remove and clean them every 2 to 3 days. With a good bubble trap, you should not have to worry. I would sooner use a filter sock as you can get 2 or 3 of them so you can remove and wash them when you have the time. More student friendly IMO.

I'm looking forward to pics of the stand biuld. I love building them out of wood, so I'm really interested in seeing a metal stand biuld.

If you take your time to do the research FIRST, you can successfully set-up and keep ANY type of aquarium with ease."Not using a quarantine tank is like playing Russian roulette. Nobody wins the game, some people just get to play longer than others." - Anthony CalfoFishless CycleCycling with FishMarine Aquarium Info [URL="http://saltwater.aquaticcommunity.com/"]

No substraight in my sump, bare bottom. No room for it, nor do I want sand sucked up into any of my equipment, no refugium in my sump. I don't think you would need sand or any other type of substright unless you have a refugium in your sump or as a separate tank.

I'll try and post pics this week of my sump

If you take your time to do the research FIRST, you can successfully set-up and keep ANY type of aquarium with ease."Not using a quarantine tank is like playing Russian roulette. Nobody wins the game, some people just get to play longer than others." - Anthony CalfoFishless CycleCycling with FishMarine Aquarium Info [URL="http://saltwater.aquaticcommunity.com/"]

cool cool... also as an update, I'm thinking that I could make my own reactor chamber out of some type of bottle or something and run a pipe to the bottom and have the offshoot of my pump push water through the reactor chamber and then back into the sump

Basically what I'm thinking is I can use my MAG 12 drive for dual purpose. One and mainly to pump water back into the tank. And second to pump water through the reactor through that T break.

The original T is so that I can control the rate of return vs the rate of overflow, so I figured I could use the offshoot from the return line to pump water through a reactor with some media (don't know what kind yet though)

Anybody see any problems with this? I haven't run a test on my overflow set up to see roughly how many gph it can handle and how much I'll have to tame my pump (if at all)

More to come on this when I get a wet test going of the full system, but just spit balling ideas right now

55g Long --> After 18mo of doing well the tank crashed during moving. Most likely cause: Flatworm Die-off... won't start another until after moving... Likely not until late 2013